Rhodes wasn't a flashy statesman

By Gary Nelson, Tribune

Any show-biz has-beens get bigger national press when they die than John Rhodes got on Monday.

The Associated Press packaged his obituary with that of Amina Rizk, an Egyptian actress, and The Washington Post put a decent obit on the wire.

Beyond that, nothing. Rhodes got less national ink than that pedophile ex-priest who was killed over the weekend in a Massachusetts prison.

In a way, Rhodes designed things that way. The U.S. House of Representatives seldom incubates flashy personae, and Rhodes spent 30 years there. And for many Arizonans, Rhodes was a historic footnote, if even that. Why, he was 20-plus years removed from his service in Congress, which ended long before many of us even got here.

But 29 summers ago, Rhodes stood at the vortex of one of the most intense political dramas in U.S. history. Nationally, that’s what he’s being remembered for, though many will say his work on the Central Arizona Project was his greatest gift to Arizona.

That political drama, of course, was Watergate. President Richard Nixon was up to his armpits in evidence he had tried to impede the investigation of a break-in at Democratic National Headquarters in the summer of 1972, and by August 1974 the scandal had become a genuine crisis.

For the longest time, Rhodes had held his fire. He was a Republican, as was Nixon. But rather than rushing to Nixon’s immediate defense, Rhodes watched and waited as the evidence accumulated. As early as May 1974 he had suggested Nixon might consider resigning.

This judiciousness required no small measure of courage. According to an Associated Press article that ran Aug. 7, 1974, it “had earned Rhodes the enmity of the conservative (House) members who form the core of his support, some of whom had lashed out at him recently in a bitter and emotional behind-the-scenes display of frustration.”

Rhodes stayed the course, however. He finally announced he would vote to impeach Nixon because “covering of criminal activity and misuse of federal agencies cannot be tolerated.”

Convinced that Nixon’s presidency was doomed, Rhodes accompanied Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., and Sen. Hugh Scott, R-Pa., to the White House. There they told Nixon that his impeachment and conviction by the House and Senate, respectively, were certain.

It was the last straw, and Nixon resigned on Aug. 9.

During the ordeal, the AP said, Rhodes turned down three invitations to dine with Nixon on the presidential yacht Sequoia. He did not want to be influenced by such trappings of splendor. He wanted, instead, to be influenced by the facts.

The demeanor of Rhodes, Goldwater and other Republicans during the Watergate ordeal seems to stand in stark contrast to the knee-jerk partisanship that has torn the fabric of governance in succeeding decades.

Watergate was an awful time, but Rhodes was one of the statesmen whose hands steadied the helm.

East Valley Tribune, August 26, 2003. Reprinted with the kind permission of the publisher.